Dec 18, 2024

'The Best Day Of My Life' by Douglas Harding

The best day of my life—my rebirthday, so to speak—was when I found I had no head. This is not a literary gambit, a witticism designed to arouse interest at any cost. I mean it in all seriousness: I have no head.

It was eighteen years ago, when I was thirty-three, that I made the discovery. Though it certainly came out of the blue, it did so in response to an urgent enquiry; I had for several months been absorbed in the question: what am I? The fact that I happened to be walking in the Himalayas at the time probably had little to do with it; though in that country unusual states of mind are said to come more easily. However that may be, a very still clear day, and a view from the ridge where I stood, over misty blue valleys to the highest mountain range in the world, ... [Read more]

Seed questions for reflection: How do you relate to our head being no mere nothing but a container for everything? Can you share a personal story of a time you felt you had lost your head and gained the world? What helps you reconcile stopping to think with stopping thinking?